The New Addams Family: Halloween with the Addams Family
The Halloween special "Halloween with the Addams Family" is the first episode of the first season of the 1990s Canadian-American comedy series The New Addams Family. It was first broadcast on October 19, 1998, airing on YTV in Canada and Fox Family in the United States. It is a remake of the 1964 episode of the same name from the original Addams Family TV series. The plot concerns two bank robbers who take refuge inside the Addamses' home on Halloween night. They quickly discover that the Addamses are very rich and try to steal their money and valuables. However, they find that robbing the family and getting away from the house are much more difficult than they had imagined. Plot The episode begins with a parody of the famous Christmas poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas") and scenes of the Addams Family characters sleeping on the night before Halloween, Uncle Fester is in a closet, hanging upside down like a bat, Grandmama Addams is dozing in an electric chair, the gigantic butler Lurch and the disembodied hand Thing are sleeping in coffins, the girl Wednesday is lying with her arms crossed over her chest on a bed surrounded by barbed wire, while her brother Pugsley is being dragged under his bed screaming. On Halloween morning, Gomez leaps out of bed, happy that the "most wonderful time of the year" has arrived. He gives his wife Morticia a pair of handcuffs as a present, which she immediately puts on Gomez. Grandmama and Lurch lock a huge hairy monster, which is going to be the family's Halloween dinner, in the larder. Brandishing a sword, Gomez faces a grinning jack-o-lantern and uses the blade to carve a much more gruesome face on the pumpkin. Uncle Fester announces that this year the family will be bobbing for grenades and the children Wednesday and Pugsley come downstairs in their costumes. They are dressed as what are, according to Gomez, "two of history's most frightening and intimidating creatures", the film critics Siskel and Ebert. Two masked bank robbers, father and son, although the older one insists on being called "boss" rather than "dad", have abandonned their getaway car which has run out of gas and find themselves outside the Addamses' house. They take refuge in its garden. As the children are leaving to go trick-or-treating, Pugsley notices the two masked men and assumes that they must be trick-or-treaters too. Gomez invites the two men inside, they are reluctant at first but decide to go in when they see the light of a police car. The two men assume that the Addamses' strange house has been specially decorated for Halloween. When they hear a scream, they compliment the Addamses on the great sound effects, a comment which puzzles the family. Gomez takes the men's bag and sees that it is full of money. He assumes that his neighbors must have given all of the money to the men while they were trick-or-treating. He produces two large bundles of banknotes from his pocket and adds them to the bag. The older robber realises that the family must be extremely wealthy. He produces a gun and announces a stick up. Uncle Fester takes it for a game and produces a bigger gun. Morticia reminds him that their two guests initiated the game and therefore it is only polite to allow them to take the parts of the armed robbers. Much to the family's disappointment, the older robber announces that nobody has to get hurt. The family insist on being mistreated, saying that they will refuse to cooperate unless they are tied up. Meanwhile, Wednesday and Pugsley arrive at the home of a young couple. When the door is opened, the man is wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a large fake knife, in imitation of Jason Voorhees, and the woman has a fake cleaver attached to her head. They apologise for scaring the children but Wednesday and Pugsley are not only not frightened but are distinctly unimpressed by the couple's poor "homage to the '80s slasher genre". The couple insist on having a trick played on them before giving the children a box of raisins. Wednesday is happy to oblige. The couple are tied to a chair and their doorbell is rigged up to give them an electric shock whenever somebody rings it. Wednesday and Pugsley see a bully in a Frankenstein's monster costume stealing candy from younger children. When he demands that Pugsley and Wednesday hand over their treats, they give him a bag full of explosives instead, detonating them by remote control as he walks away. The robbers have tied up the Addamses, although Uncle Fester complains that the ropes are not tight enough. Gomez and Morticia tell them that the valuables are upstairs in the den, behind the picture of Attilla the Hun. When they go upstairs, the robbers fall through a trap door, landing next to a guillotine. They eventually return with the "valuables" that they found in the den, a vial of bubonic plague, and tell the family that by "valuables" they meant "money". They are told that the money is in a cookie jar in the kitchen. They take all the money from the skull-shaped cookie jar and put it in their bag. The family grow impatient, wondering why the robbers are taking so long, they cast off the ropes and decide to go and help them. The two robbers split up, the older one taking all the money with him, and try to get out of the house. The younger one is startled by the sight of Thing and by Uncle Fester lighting a light bulb by putting it in his mouth. The older one is dragged into a hidden passage behind a bookcase. Meanwhile, Grandmama has noticed that the Halloween dinner has escaped and goes in search of it, brandishing a large knife. The two robbers are reunited and hide behind a screen. They hear Grandmama saying, "I'm going to kill you. Cook you and cut you up into little pieces." They assume she is threatening them and flee in terror. Two police officers arrive at the house, bringing home Wednesday and Pugsley to stop them from terrorizing the neighborhood any further. The two robbers gladly run towards the officers, happy to give themselves up and get away from the house full of lunatics. Cast *Gomez Addams - Glenn Taranto *Morticia Addams - Ellie Harvie *Uncle Fester - Michael Roberds *Grandmama - Betty Phillips *Wednesday - Nicole Fugere *Pugsley - Brody Smith *Lurch - John De Santis *Thing - Steven Fox *Robbers - Jerry Van Dyke and Robert Maloney *Young couple - Kevin Michael Perry and Alice Thorgimsson *Bully - Bob de Leuw *Police officers - David Fredericks and Suzanne Palmer See also *''The Addams Family'': Halloween - Addams Style *''Halloween with the New Addams Family'' *''The Addams Family'': Puttergeist External links *''The New Addams Family'': "Halloween with the Addams Family" on the Internet Movie Database. *[http://www.tv.com/shows/the-new-addams-family/halloween-with-the-addams-family-106637 The New Addams Family: "Halloween with the Addams Family" on TV.com.] Category:Episodes of TV shows Category:The Addams Family